In the second of the Distinguished Public Lecture Series run by the James Martin 21st Century School, Dr Craig Venter will discuss his work at the J Craig Venter Institute and its implications for the future of our culture, society and science. The Institute's projects include developing new understanding of human disease at the DNA level, running the Sorcerer II Global Ocean Sampling Expedition to understand microbial diversity in the world's oceans, and finding new ways of tackling environmental issues, especially the production of new biological sources of energy. One of its many goals is to engineer microbes that can produce biological sources of fuel. Dr Venter and his team believe that genomics is the field of science that has the power to transform the world around us.